Google Spring Cleaning: 70 Features & Services Closed So Far

Posted By
cynthia
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April 8, 2013 @ 11:00 AM
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Using The Internet |
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Two years ago, tech giant Google announced it was doing some spring cleaning. The company said it was shutting down a number of products and merging others into existing products. They were serious about cleaning house. Since then, they’ve closed 70 features and services.

Most recently, the end of the Google Reader service has drawn the most attention, but also on the way out is Google Building Maker, Google Cloud Connect, Google Voice App for Blackberry and the updates for the desktop version of the Snapseed photo editor.

Some of the changes will affect developers. CalDAV API will become available for “whitelisted” developers, but will be shut down for other developers in September. Search API for Shopping, which allowed developers to create shopping apps with Google’s Product Search data will also be shut down in September.

Google says that “by focusing our efforts, we can concentrate of building great products that really help in their lives.”

The company has been criticized in the past for muscling the competition out of the way to dominate web services and then pulling the plug on those services.